One day after advancing beyond the semifinals for the first time in his career, the 21-year-old Gulbis had a surprisingly easy time with his second seed Croatian opponent winning the match in one hour 20 minutes.
"Everything that I do now is the first time for my country," Gulbis said. "I hope it's positive. They see that a guy from Latvia also can make it and win." Gulbis won all eight of his service games and pressured Karlovic's serve.
After fending off a break point in the first set where he trailed 2-1, Gulbis took control of the match by breaking Karlovic to go up 3-2 and then win the next four games to close out the set.
Gulbis broke Karlovic again early in the second set and coasted to the triumph.
The big-serving Karlovic was celebrating his 31st birthday but had little to be happy about. While registering 14 aces he also made five double faults to open the door for the red-hot Gulbis who did not drop a set in the entire tournament.
It took Gulbis 65 tournaments to reach his second career ATP semifinals, last week in Memphis, before he broke through this week.
"This year is going to be his breakthrough," said Karlovic.
"Everything that he hit was in. He was very cool, calm.
Nothing could impress him."
In Newport, Rhode Island, doubles specialists Todd Woodbridge, Mark Woodforde, Gigi Fernandez and Natasha Zvereva have been elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
Woodbridge and Woodforde of Australia won a record 61 ATP doubles titles, including 11 major championships. Both also reached the top 20 in the singles rankings.
Fernandez and Zvereva collected 38 titles, including 14 at Grand Slams. They won six consecutive majors in 1992-93.
Overall, Fernandez won 68 doubles titles, 17 at Grand Slams, while Zvereva won 18 majors.
Also being inducted in July: Owen Davidson, a men's and mixed doubles specialist; Brad Parks, pioneer of wheelchair tennis; and the late Derek Hardwick, former chairman of the British Lawn Tennis Association.
Meanwhile, Nicolas Almagro will replace the injured Juan Carlos Ferrero for Spain's Davis Cup tie against Switzerland on March 5-7.
Ferrero hurt his knee during the final of the Mexico Open in Acapulco, which he lost to fellow Spaniard David Ferrer.
Amagro was informed he was in the squad by Spanish team captain Albert Costa on Sunday, the Spanish tennis federation said.
A knee injury also means Rafael Nadal is ruled out of the best-of-five series, as is Switzerland's Roger Federer who had announced he would not take part in the Davis Cup.
Almagro, Ferrer, Tommy Robredo and Marcel Granollers will represent Spain at the 11,000-capacity bullring in the northern city of Logrono.
